This invention relates to a laser based system to measure the physical and mechanical properties of thin films, plates, and coating materials. Currently existing laser ultrasonic techniques for the characterization of such materials use pulse laser sources for the generation of acoustic waves. Short laser pulses from femto second to nanosecond second lasers generate broad bandwidth acoustic waves, and detection of these waves is accompanied by the presence of broadband noise in the measurement system. This degrades the signal-to-noise ratio of the measurement limits the accuracy with which the relevant material properties can be determined.